Pages

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Believing the mind and body are the same promotes healthy behavior

Minds are strange things.Our conscious experience of the world feels separate from the body that
we inhabit.That is why it is so easy to
believe both in ghosts (minds with no physical body) and zombies (bodies with
no conscious mind).Discussions about
the relationship between mind and body happen both in college dorms and in the
philosophical literature.

But does this discussion really matter?That is, are there aspects of the way people
live their life that are influenced by their beliefs about the relationship
between mind and body?

This issue was explored in an interesting paper in the
October, 2012 issue of Psychological
Science by Matthias Forstmann, Pascal Burgmer, and Thomas Mussweiler.They were interested in the relationship
between people’s beliefs about mind and body and their health-related
behaviors.

The authors reasoned that people who believe that the mind
and body are separate may be less prone to do healthy things to protect the
body than people who believe that the mind and body are one and the same.

In one set of studies, participants read one of two
essays.One essay promoted the idea that
the mind and body are separate (a philosophical position called dualism).The other essay promoted the idea that the
mind and body are one (a position called physicalism).After reading the essay, people rated their
own belief about the relationship between mind and body by looking at a series
of seven pairs of circles that overlapped to different degrees.They were asked to select the degree of
overlap between the circles that reflected their belief about the relationship
between mind and body.Finally,
participants answered a series of questions about health-related behaviors
(like going to the gym and washing hands after using the bathroom).

As you might expect, people who read an essay promoting
dualism rated the mind and body as more separate than those who read an essay
promoting physicalism.Participants who
read about dualism also stated that they engage in fewer health-related
behaviors than those who read about physicalism.

Of course, studies about attitudes may not reflect people’s
behavior in the world.In another study,
participants were approached before eating lunch at a cafeteria.They read an essay about either dualism or
physicalism and to do the start of a memory task.People were asked to eat lunch and then to
return to complete the memory task.After they returned, participants were asked about what they ate and
also rated how healthy their lunch had been.Participants who read about dualism ate a less healthy meal than those
who read about physicalism.

Another study in this series had people select from among a
set of cookbooks after reading about either dualism or physicalism.Some cookbooks gave recipes for unhealthy
food (barbecue or desserts) others gave recipes for healthy food (vegetarian or
organic food).People were more likely
to select a cookbook with recipes for healthy food after reading about
physicalism than after reading about dualism.

Putting this all together, then, your belief about the
relationship between mind and body affects your behavior.The more that you see the mind and body as a
unit, the more respect you show your body.

So, the next time you are faced with an opportunity to do
something unhealthy, just remember that your body is deeply connected to your
mind.